The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling
piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his heels,
soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded
around him, eying him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator
bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired on which side
he voted. Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little
fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear
"whether he was Federal or Democrat."
Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing,
self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through
the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he
passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, the
other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat, penetrating, as it
were, into his very soul, demanded, in an austere tone, what brought him
to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels, and
whether he meant to breed a riot in the village.
"Alas! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor, quiet man,
a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!"
Here a general shout burst from the bystanders.--"A tory! a tory! a spy! a
refugee! hustle him! away with him!" It was with great difficulty that the
self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and, having a tenfold
austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit, what he came
there for, and whom he was seeking. The poor man humbly assured him that
he meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some of his
neighbors, who used to keep about the tavern. "Well, who are they? name
them."
Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's Nicholas Vedder?"
There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a
thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder! why he is dead and gone these
eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used
to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone too." "Where's Brom
Dutcher?" "Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war. Some
say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point; others say he was
drowned in a squall at the foot of Anthony's Nose. I don't know; he never
came back again."
"Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster?" "He went off to the wars, too;
was a great militia general, and is now in Congress." Rip's heart died
away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding
himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by
treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could
not understand--war, Congress, Stony Point. He had no courage to ask after
any more friends, but cried out in despair, "Does nobody here know Rip Van
Winkle?"
"Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three. "Oh, to be sure! That's Rip
Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree." Rip looked, and beheld a
precise counterpart of himself as he went up the mountain; apparently as
lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely
confounded; he doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or
another man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in the cocked hat
demanded who he was, and what was his name.
"God knows!" exclaimed he, at his wit's end. "I'm not myself; I'm somebody
else; that's me yonder; no, that's somebody else got into my shoes. I was
myself last night; but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they've changed
my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I can't tell what's
my name or who I am!"
The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly,
and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper, also,
about securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief, at
the very suggestion of which the self-important man in the cocked hat
retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment, a fresh, comely
woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man.
She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began
to cry. "Hush, Rip!" cried she, "hush, you little fool! the old man won't
hurt you."
The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all
awakened a train of recollections in his mind. "What is your name, my good
woman?" asked he. "Judith Gardenier." "And your father's name?" "Ah, poor
man! Rip Van Winkle was his name; but it's twenty years since he went away
from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since; his dog came
home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the
Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl."
Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering
voice: "Where's your mother?" "Oh, she, too, died but a short time since;
she broke a blood vessel in a fit of passion at a New England peddler."
There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest
man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child
in his arms. "I am your father!" cried he. "Young Rip Van Winkle once, old
Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?"
All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd,
put her hand to her brow, and, peering under it in his face for a moment,
exclaimed, "Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle! it is himself! Welcome home
again, old neighbor! Why, where have you been these twenty long years?"
Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but
as one night.
To make a long story short, the company broke up and returned to the more
important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to live
with her. She had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout, cheery farmer
for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to
climb upon his back. Rip now resumed his old walks and habits. He soon
found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear
and tear of time, and preferred making friends among the rising
generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor.
--Irving.
NOTES.--Rip Van Winkle, according to Irving's story in "The Sketch Book,"
was a great drunkard, and was driven from his home in the Catskill
Mountains, one night, by his wife. Wandering among the mountains, he fell
in with the ghosts of Hendrick Hudson and his crew, with whom he played a
game of ninepins. Upon drinking the liquor which they offered him,
however, he immediately fell into a deep sleep which lasted for twenty
years. The above lesson recounts the events that befell him when he
returned to his native village. In the meantime the Revolution of 1776 had
taken place.
The Federals and the Democrats formed the two leading political parties of
that time.
Stony Point is a promontory on the Hudson, at the entrance of the
Highlands, forty-two miles from New York. It was a fortified post during
the Revolution, captured by the British, and again retaken by the
Americans under Wayne. Anthony's Nose is also a promontory on the Hudson,
about fifteen miles above Stony Point.